Although suicide is relatively rare among children, the rate of suicide attempts and suicide deaths increases tremendously during adolescence. Suicide is the third-leading cause of death for 15- to 24-year-olds, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), surpassed only by accidents and homicide. The risk of suicide increases dramatically when kids and teens have access to firearms at home, and nearly 60% of all suicides in the United States are committed with a gun. That's why it's important that any gun in your home be unloaded, locked, and kept out of the reach of children and...

MDMA users may encounter problems similar to those experienced by amphetamine and cocaine users, including addiction. In addition to its rewarding effects, MDMA's psychological effects can include confusion, depression, sleep problems, anxiety, and paranoia during, and sometimes weeks after, taking the drug. Physical effects can include muscle tension, involuntary teeth-clenching, nausea, blurred vision, faintness, and chills or sweating. Increases in heart rate and blood pressure are a special risk for people with circulatory or heart disease. MDMA-related fatalities at raves...

Marijuana use increases the heart rate as much as 50 percent, depending on the amount of THC. It can cause chest pain in people who have a poor blood supply to the heart - and it produces these effects more rapidly than tobacco smoke does. Scientists believe that marijuana can be especially harmful to the lungs because users often inhale the unfiltered smoke deeply and hold it in their lungs as long as possible. Therefore, the smoke is in contact...

Even though a law enforcement officer is not likely to encounter low-intensity abusers, these individuals are one step away from becoming binge abusers. They already know the stimulating effect that methamphetamine provides them by swallowing or snorting the drug, but they have not experienced the euphoric rush associated with smoking or injecting it and have not encountered clearly defined stages of abuse. However, simple switching to smoking or injecting methamphetamine offers the abusers a quick transition to a binge pattern...

LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide) is one of the major drugs making up the hallucinogen class. LSD was discovered in 1938 and is one of the most potent mood-changing chemicals. It is manufactured from lysergic acid, which is found in ergot, a fungus that grows on rye and other grains. LSD, commonly referred to as "acid," is sold on the street in tablets, capsules, and, occasionally, liquid form. It is odorless, colorless, and has a slightly bitter taste and is usually...

Rohypnol Rohypnol, the trade name for flunitrazepam, has been a concern for the last few years because of its abuse as a "date rape" drug. People may unknowingly be given the drug which, when mixed with alcohol, can incapacitate a victim and prevent them from resisting sexual assault. Also, Rohypnol may be lethal when mixed with alcohol and/or other depressants. Rohypnol produces sedative-hypnotic effects including muscle relaxation and amnesia; it can also produce physical and psychological dependence. In Miami, one of...

OxyContin is the brand name for an opioid analgesic containing the active ingredient oxycodone (also found in Percocet and Percodan). OxyContin is a legal narcotic that is available, by prescription, to treat severe pain. OxyContin is a controlled-release medication that, when used correctly, provides extended relief of pain associated with cancer, back pain, or arthritis. However, often when the drug is abused, the tablets are crushed and snorted, chewed, or mixed with water and injected- eliminating the time-release factor and...

Alcohol affects people differently, depending on their size, sex, body build, and metabolism. General effects are a feeling of warmth, flushed skin, impaired judgment, decreased inhibitions, muscular in coordination, slurred speech, and memory and comprehension loss. In states of extreme intoxication, vomiting is likely to occur, possibly accompanied by incontinence, poor respiration, a fall in blood pressure, and in cases of severe alcohol poisoning, coma and death.

Cocaine addiction can occur very quickly and be very difficult to break. Animal studies have shown that animals will work very hard (press a bar over 10,000 times) for a single injection of cocaine, choose cocaine over food and water, and take cocaine even when this behavior is punished. Animals must have their access to cocaine limited in order not to take toxic or even lethal doses. People addicted to cocaine behave similarly. They will go to great lengths to...

"The use of morphine in the place of alcohol is but a choice of evils, and by far the lesser." Cincinnati Lancet-Clinic. 1889 --- "Heroin will take the place of morphine without its disagreeable qualities." New York Medical Journal. 1901 --- "Some (heroin) addicts readily admit that they prefer methadone as their drug of abuse." International Journal of Pharmacology. 1975 --- With regular heroin use, tolerance develops. This means the abuser must use more heroin...